Famous quotes

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“I think of the poetry of René Char and all he must have seen and suffered that has brought him to speak only of sedgy rivers, of daffodils and tulips whose roots they water, even to the free-flowing river that laves the rootlets of those sweet-scented flowers that people the milky way”
William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have loved colours, and not flowers; Their motion, not the swallows wings; And wasted more than half my hours Without the comradeship of things.”
Arthur Symons (1865–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Come, Death! If really thou hast started already to come—welcome! These flowers may tremble to fade away, These juicy grapes to wither, But why should I fear Thee? I have but these wines of tears that fill my cup to offer Thee And which I thought over-drinking cannot exhaust; Come if that be acceptable to Thee!”
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883–1966) first seen 1883 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: English translation. From a a poem, ‘On the Death-Bed’ (Maranonmukh Shayyevar )., quoted in Vikram Sampath - Savarkar, Echoes from a Forgotten Past, 1883–1924 (2019)
“Across the downs a hummingbird Came dipping through the bowers, He pivoted on emptiness To scrutinize the flowers.”
Nathalia Crane (1913–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As the skipping rope hit the pavement, so did the ball. As the rope curved over the head of the jumping child, the child with the ball caught the ball. Down came the ropes. Down came the balls. Over and over again. Up. Down. All in rhythm. All identical. Like the houses. Like the paths. Like the flowers”
Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Your lips have splashed my dull house with print of flowers My hands are crooked where they spilled over your dear curving”
Kenneth Patchen (1911–1972) said by 1972 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I knew the stars, the flowers, and the birds, The gray and wintry sides of many glens, And did but half remember human words, In converse with the mountains, moors, and fens.”
John Millington Synge (1871–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Prelude (1910).
“Nothing in the whole world is of interest to me but my painting and my flowers.”
Claude Monet (1840–1926) first seen 1911 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: his remark, shortly after the death of his second wife Alice in 1911; as quoted in: K.E. Sullivan Monet: Discovering Art, Brockhampton press, London (2004), p. 76
“How sweet and beautifull is every place & I visit my old Haunts with renewed delight... nothing can exceed the beautiful green of the meadows which are beginning to fill with butter Cups — & various flowers — the birds are singing from morning till night but most of all the Sky larks — How delightfull is the Country.”
John Constable (1776–1837) first seen 1821 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to his wife, Maria Bicknell (20 April 1821); as quoted in Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable (Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1993), p. 28
“The Philippines should be grateful to you if you would write a complete history of our country from an impartial point of view.. But don't expect thanks and laurels--crowns of flowers and laurels are the inventions of free people. But perhaps your children may gather the fruit of what the father planted.”
José Rizal (1861–1896) first seen 1887 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Blumentritt (13 April 1887)
“Fate presented itself to some like a chinese fan--one side black, the other side gilded with flowers.”
José Rizal (1861–1896) said by 1896 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was in mid-summer [1906]. The colors of the flowers attracted me irresistibly and almost sudden I was painting. My first small gardens paintings were born.”
Emil Nolde (1867–1956) first seen 1906 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote of Nolde, 1906 in Jahre der Kämpfe (The years of struggles); as cited by Francesco Mazzaferro in 'The Diaries of Paul Klee' - Part Three: Klee as a Secessionist and a Neo-Impressionist Artist
“I was with this guy who was a plasterer, and at lunchtime he was eating a stuffed heart . . . I was thinking, "I'm not like these guys. I'm an artist." And I saw a bee come over to some flowers and get all the pollen out. I was looking and thinking, "How does it do that?" And then the guy who was eating the stuffed heart said, "How does that bee do that?”
Damien Hirst (born 1965) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Beckett, Andy. "Arts: A Strange Case", The Independent, 12 November 1995
“[speaking about a Persian rug...] how modern their conception of space was! They understood it in the seventeenth century; we are only just beginning to re-understand it in the twentieth – see how they mesh the vines, the tendrils, the flowers with space and utilize these linked forms to create wholeness and radiance.”
Arshile Gorky (1904–1948) first seen 1947 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 359: in: 'A visit to the Metropolitan Museum with Gorky', Ethel Schwabacher, 1947
“A few little flowers will spring up briefly in the dry gulley through which torrents of water pass occasionally. But it is steady streams that bring thick and needed crops. In the agriculture of the soul that has to do with nurturing attributes, flash floods are no substitute for regular irrigation.”
Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) first seen 1981 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Notwithstanding My Weakness, 1981, Deseret Book Co. (Salt Lake City, Utah), pg. 7.
“The rain has stopped, the clouds have drifted away, and the weather is clear again. If your heart is pure, then all things in your world are pure. Abandon this fleeting world, abandon yourself, Then the moon and flowers will guide you along the Way.”
Ryōkan (1758–1831) said by 1831 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“..between ourselves, do you think a worker wants to hang a picture in his home where he sees himself sweating in a factory? He would prefer a bouquet of flowers or a pretty landscape. [Leger's critic on Aragon's Social Realism ]”
Fernand Léger (1881–1955) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote, 1950, in: Fernand Léger - The Later Years, catalogue ed. Nicolas Serota, published by the Trustees of the Whitechapel Art gallery, London, Prestel Verlag, 1988, p. 67
“Surely, no one hoped for so many things. Hold the flowers close to your heart; they may someday bloom.”
Ayumi Hamasaki (born 1978) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sino-Japanese relations will certainly brighten more in the future and the flowers of friendly Sino-Japanese relations will increase their beauty.”
Wen Jiabao (born 1942) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Wen Jiabao (2007) cited in: China's Wen seeks to charm Japan as ties thaw 13 April 2007
“Look at the ivy on the cold clinging wall Look at the flowers and the green grass so tall It's not a matter of when push comes to shove It's just an hour on the wings of a dove.”
Van Morrison (born 1945) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“With a few movements of the eye, he could manifest the mountains, the ocean, the rivers, the moonlit valleys, torrential rain, the gait of the swan and the elephant, a tornado, the opening of the lotus flowers and a lot else. To see him do it was to know that he was a non-pareil” - P.T. Narendra Menon (noted art critic and poet), 1990”
Mani Madhava Chakyar (1899–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He whom we anatomized ‘whose words we gathered as pleasant flowers and thought on his wit and how neatly he described things’ speaks to us, hatching marrow, broody all night over the bones of a deadman.”
Basil Bunting (1900–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Perhaps like me you are tired of suffering and talking about suffering, estás hasta el pescuezo de sufrimiento, de contar las lluvias de sangre pero no las lluvias de flores (up to your neck with suffering, of counting the rainsof blood but not the rains of flowers).”
Gloria E. Anzaldúa (1942–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The window-lights, myriads and myriads, Bloom from the walls like climbing flowers.”
Sara Teasdale (1884–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is also, for instance, a direct symbolic strength in the words 'Say it with flowers', which makes that poem one of the cornerstones of Danish lyricism. It has stood out like a boot of an exceptionally fine fit..”
Asger Jorn (1914–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You know the wild flowers suit your hair: Place hands full of the purple bloom Of loosestrife, glad of such soft doom, And tender-toned narcissus there”
Edward Andrade (1887–1971) said by 1971 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Discipline is the virtue that begins in obedience and flowers in self-control.”
Ted Malloch (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One minute she is a sweet old silly, knitting herself a set of syringe covers and talking about her favourite flowers, and the very next moment she has told you and your friends she has a ring supporting the back of her vagina.”
Derren Brown (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the garden of ethics, even the smallest weeds can choke out the tallest flowers.”
Kuruvilla Pandikattu (born 1957) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When one flowers dies, another is born.”
Edmund Cooper (1926–1982) said by 1982 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Like beauteous flowers which vainly waste their scent Of odours in unhaunted deserts.”
William Chamberlayne (poet) first seen 1659 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pharonida (1659), Part II, Book IV.
“There is in our souls some native seed of reason, which, if nourished by good counsel and training, flowers into virtue, but which, on the other hand, if unable to resist the vices surrounding it, is stifled and blighted.”
Étienne de La Boétie (1530–1563) said by 1563 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Once I spoke the language of the flowers, Once I understand each word the caterpillar said,Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings, And shared a conversation with the housefly in my bed.”
Shel Silverstein (1930–1999) said by 1999 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let’s hope that no system of theory of systems will ever eliminate the other systems – that no approach will be promoted to a dogma, and no group of scientists will become the high priests. Shouldn’t we rather let a hundred flowers bloom...?”
Gerald Weinberg (1933–2018) first seen 1976 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Weinberg (1976) cited in: Slawomir Sztaba (2010) "Economy and Sociology. The Likely Directions of Cooperation.". In: WFES. Vol 1, nr.1 2010. p. 218
“My heart shall be thy garden. Come, my own, Into thy garden; thine be happy hours Among my fairest thoughts, my tallest flowers, From root to crowning petal thine alone.”
Alice Meynell (1847–1922) said by 1922 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Rich meanings of the prophet-Spring adorn, Unseen, this colourless sky of folded showers, And folded winds; no blossom in the bowers; A poet's face asleep in this grey morn. Now in the midst of the old world forlorn A mystic child is set in these still hours. I keep this time, even before the flowers, Sacred to all the young and the unborn.”
Alice Meynell (1847–1922) said by 1922 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...the wild flowers blooming in hushed solitude Start not at the whispering, 'tis but the breeze”
Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon (1829–1879) said by 1879 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Once a suitable mate is located, humans engage in various peculiar mating rituals. The male, for example, may give the female a bundle of plant genitals (or “flowers”), or the pair may take turns making noises at each other while imbibing fermented plant juice." (Quote from an alien scientists report on our species.)”
Steve Stewart-Williams (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A service without flowers, the king without a horse and friendship with one who does not know the language are a waste.”
Sarvajna wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Awake Hindus: Mother! The flowers of our worship have crowned thee! Parsees: Mother! The flame of our hope shall surround you Mussulmans: Mother! The sword of our love shall defend thee Christians: Mother! The song of thy faith shall attend thee All creeds: Shall not our dauntless devotion avail thee? Harken! O Queen O!goddess, we hail thee!”
Sarojini Naidu (1879–1949) first seen 1828 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Her poem in "The Golden Treasury of Indo-Anglian Poetry, 1828-1965", p=161
“Whose luck is better far than ours? The other fellow's. Whose road seems always lined with flowers? The other fellow's. Who is the man who seems to get Most joy in life, with least regret, Who always seems to win his bet? The other fellow.”
Edgar Guest (1881–1959) said by 1959 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I sought refuge in my schoolbooks, among the flowers of Greek poetry, or the magical figures of geometry.”
Jean Metzinger (1883–1956) said by 1956 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A seed is small in size. But it carries in its womb leaves, flowers, fruits, nay even the whole tree. The human brain is very much like a seed. It may not have a great shape and size. But it traps within itself endless possibilities. It is a fountainhead of thoughts and promises that can be fulfilled.”
Amitabh Bachchan (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the heart is open to the sun of grace, we see flowers blossom in their fragrance; these are seen to have profited by the word of God.”
Marguerite Bourgeoys (1620–1700) said by 1700 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Alicia, with Miguel] "I do what I can to be faithful to Christ's admonition to love God and to love my neighbour. Nothing else matters." "To love God," he repeated. "How can you love a phantom?" "Because he is not a phantom to me. I perceive him in the scent of the flowers and the sun's warmth on my face. Do you truly not feel at this moment a benign and loving presence?" "Only yours," he said.”
Michael Nava (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Fanatic secularism is as dangerous to the world as fanatic religion. Love is the heart of all religions; the theme of all classical works of art and literature; the song of all devotees. Scientists know only what love does, not what love is. Love is to human hearts what the sun is to flowers.”
Chinmayananda Saraswati (1916–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This was a solitary walk where the sun and the scents of wild flowers would act on a tortured mind like a soothing drug.”
Lindsey Davis (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Today's Real Man is probably closest to Spencer Tracy or Gary Cooper in spirit; he realizes that while birds, flowers, poetry, and small children do not add to the quality of life in quite the same manner as a Super Bowl and six-pack of Budweiser, he's learned to appreciate them anyway.”
Bruce Feirstein (born 1956) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It's so nice to get flowers while you can still smell the fragrance.”
Lena Horne (1917–2010) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in People magazine (10 November 1980)
“We were emerging from the period of war, of uniforms, of women-soldiers built like boxers. I drew women-flowers, soft shoulders, fine waists like liana and wide skirts like corolla.”
Christian Dior (1905–1957) said by 1957 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source